As the orchestra redefines itself after its founder’s death, Tim Miller – a banker – has been named Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Alan Watt – an Australian arts consultant, formerly with the Budapest Festival Orchestra – becomes chief executive.

 

We’re not sure why this press release, a year old, has just dropped into the Slipped Disc inbox. But its content may be of interest to those of you who still play records at home.

The survey claims to show that two people who listen to music together in a private place are more likely to end up in bed together than those who don’t.

The survey, with 30,000 respondents, asserts that people who say they listen to music out loud together have 67 percent more sex, and almost a quarter of people would rather give up sex than music.

Full press release here.

The Danish culture minister Mette Bock, 100 days in office, is proposing to disband the DR orchestras and choruses, sell the concert hall and redefine the state broadcaster as a pure media company.

She said the musicians could be reallocated to the Royal Theatre.

It would be, she added, a ‘beautiful sight.’

Denmark often comes top on the world’s happiest country index.

Not for musicians. Every year they confront some new political anxiety.

 

UPDATE:

This is more complicated than it looks. Ms Bock wants to remove the orchestra from DR and place them under the management of the Royal Theatre (which is always short of funds).

In addition, she is proposing to redistribute funds and musicians from the Copenhagen Philharmonic to other orchestras around the country – Aarhus, Odense, Aalborg and Sønderborg.

Lawyers for the distinguished Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki have issued a statement in response to a website report that the musician had been ‘used operationally’ on ‘frequent trips abroad’ by the Communist state intelligence services. The website claimed to have obtained secret files to this effect.

Penderecki, in a statement to the Polish news agency, PAP, said he had no knowledge of any such documents.

‘I have never been a collaborator of the Security Services,’ he stated categorically.

The German pianist Caroline Oltmanns ascribes her current success to a quiet place.

Oltmanns is Professor of Piano at Youngstown State University.

From the always-interesting Living the Classical Life:

The Polish-born Mexican pianist Eva Maria Zuk died on February 28 in Mexico City at the age of 71.

Originally from Lodz, she was taken by her family to Venezuela as a baby. Arthur Rubinstein, who heard her play as a child and came from the same city, arranged for her to study at Juilliard.

An outstanding Chopin interpreter, she settled in Mexico in the 1970s after marrying the conductor Enrique Batiz.

 

An Easter Sonata, rediscovered in the 1970s and mistakenly attributed to her brother Felix, will be performed this Wednesday on BBC Radio 3 under its correct authorship.

Fanny Mendelssohn was banned by her father from composing for fear she might steal her brother’s limelight and then suffered greatly from discouraging remarks by her brother. It was only in the last years of her short life that she resumed composing with confidence.

With slightly awkward timing, the Royal Opera House opened its box-office on Friday for sales of June’s Otello with the ephemeral German tenor.

The immediate sales are to Friends only. General booking begins March 28.

It was on Friday that Kaufmann’s New York manager Alan Green announced he was pulling out of the Metropolitan Opera’s season highlight.

Kaufmann’s cancellation reasons – ‘his personal life and professional obligations’ – may not apply in London. Also, he owes more of a personal and professional obligation to the ROH music director Antonio Pappano than he does to the Met’s Peter Gelb. Let’s see.

He couldn’t be bothered to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony, but the old rocker is booked to open La Seine Musicale, the new concert centre in the west of Paris next month.

Go figure.

 

Emma Gerstein has won the second flute seat in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She will start work in September.

Emma, originally from Chicago, is presently principal flute of the Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand.

There has yet to be an official announcement.

The jazz pianist and composer Misha Mengelberg died on March 3, aged 81.

A great nephew of the Concertgebouw conductor Willem Mengelberg, Misha was born in Ukraine, where his father was a conductor. The family returned to Holland in the late 1930s. After music studies in The Hague, in 1967 he founded the Instant Composers Pool to promote avant-garde jazz elements. Two years later he co-founded STEIM to support electronic composers.

On record and on tour, he enjoyed international acclaim.


The Pope told participants in a liturgical music conference today: ‘The encounter with modernity and the introduction of [other] tongues into the Liturgy stirred up many problems: of musical languages, forms and genres.

‘Sometimes a certain mediocrity, superficiality and banality have prevailed, to the detriment of the beauty and intensity of liturgical celebrations.’

He added: ‘We need to promote proper musical education, especially for those who are preparing to become priests – in dialogue with the musical trends of our time, with the demands of the different cultural areas, and with an ecumenical attitude.’


photo: The Pope’s record deal